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While many of us are used to the comforts of air conditioning and Netflix, our ancestors didn't get to enjoy such luxuries. They lived off the land, and some survived in the harshest environments on Earth. This can make us wonder – would we be able to survive off the grid? With no supplies? While most of us just use this as an interesting thought exercise, some ordinary people actually have been put to the ultimate test of survival. And they've been forced to do some pretty horrifying things to survive.
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Most of us are lucky to have never found ourselves in a life-or-death situation
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While we're comfy at home with our food delivery and 600 streaming platforms
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others are living life in the fast lane, far from the comforts of home
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What would you do if you were thrown into the wilderness with no supplies and no hope
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Would you curl up in a little ball and accept your fate? Or would you discover you have the chutzpah to live another day
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There are countless stories of people who found themselves in impossible situations only to fight tooth and nail for survival, triumphing over fate and coming back with a cool story to tell
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So, today we're dying to tell you all about the most intense things people have done to survive
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Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die? No, not I
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When you're preparing for a year-long mission to Antarctica, you want to be sure your team of a dozen men is the best in the business
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During a 1961 expedition to the South Pole, 27-year-old Leonid Rogozov held the distinction of being the only doctor in the bunch
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So it's never a good thing when the only doctor for 600 miles starts getting nauseous and weak
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especially when the pain escalates to a roar in the appendix. After diagnosing himself with acute appendicitis, Rogozov deduced the organ had to go, and fast
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Nobody else on the crew was even remotely trained for such complicated surgery
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so Rogozov decided to perform it on himself. After a lot of preparations and instruction to shoot him with adrenaline should he pass out
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pulp fiction style, Rogozov began the procedure and was somehow able to shut out the rest of the
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world for two hours while he removed his own appendix. The wound was cleaned and stitched up
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and Rogozov was back to his old self in two weeks time. Meanwhile, we can't even be trusted to put
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hydrogen peroxide on his skinned knee. Ooh, that stings! Hate that! The story of 27-year-old Aaron Ralston was adapted into the 2010 film 127 Hours
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So if you saw that movie, you're already wincing. Ralston was traversing a narrow canyon when a boulder fell above him and pinned his right arm between the rocks
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He was trapped, with only a liter of water and no cell phone
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And worst of all, he hadn't told anyone where he was going or what he was doing
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So nobody knew he was out there. In other words, he was totally boned
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And he knew it. So his mind turned to a single thought. Survival
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Ralston realized that the only thing keeping him in that canyon, apart from the boulder which was much too large to move was his arm Arm the rest of the body and I have talked it over and you out of the band With no other option available to him Ralston broke the bones in his right arm and slowly self it with a dull pocket knife
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Did they award Nobel Prizes for being hardcore? Despite the grisliness of the surgery, Ralston was eventually able to free himself
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and trek back to civilization for rescue. 27-year-old Michalia Lewandowska woke up one day in England in 2011 to total darkness
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After getting a quick lay of the extremely cramped land, she came to the horrifying realization that she had been buried alive
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Worse, she was presumably late for work. Recently, Lewandowska had gone through a rough breakup with her fiancé, Marchen Kaspzak
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He wanted full custody of their three-year-old son, sparking an argument. At some point, Kaspchak hit her with a stun gun before binding and gagging her
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He then threw her in a cardboard box and drove to the rural part of the woods
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He buried the box in a shallow grave and took off, knowing he had pulled off the perfect crime
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Except, he didn't count on Lewandoska waking up and using her engagement ring to cut herself loose, which is just a little too poetic
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After breaking out of the box, she successfully flagged down a motorist for help
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Kaspchak was arrested shortly thereafter and sentenced to 20 years in prison on attempted murder charges
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And we know he's a lousy digger, so there's minimal chance he'll escape. Yuliana Kupka grew up in the rainforests of Peru with her renowned zoologist parents
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When the teenager and her mother were set to visit her father for the Christmas holiday in 1971
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the Lockheed L-188 Electra plane available for a flight had less than stellar reviews
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but the two booked the flight anyway. And 15 minutes before landing, the plane was caught
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in a lightning storm and fell apart, with Kupka still strapped safely to her seat
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Safely being a relative term here. Somehow, Kupka found herself alive and well
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save for a deep gash on her arm. Her upbringing made her familiar with her surroundings
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and she was able to find a river to follow. Kupka went on for days
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occasionally finding the remains of plane passengers who weren't so lucky. All the while, her wound had become infested with maggots
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that were literally eating her alive. Sorry, everybody, but we gotta report the facts
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Eventually, Kupka came upon a canister of gasoline and, remembering advice from her father
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poured it into the wound and began removing as many as 30 maggots
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while dealing with the intense pain. After 11 days on her own, she finally flagged down a group of Peruvian fishermen and was able to get the help she needed
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The Marathon of the Sands a six marathon that runs all the way across the Sahara Desert
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in Morocco, has been lauded as one of the most difficult runs in the world
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Ever tried running across the hot sand at the beach? Picture that, but for six straight days
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39-year-old Italian police officer Mauro Prosperi decided his job didn't have enough excitement
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and signed up for the race in 1994. During the competition, he found himself trapped in a Mad Max-style sandstorm and wandered off the trail
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When the sand finally cleared, Prosperi had no idea where he was, where to go, or which place he was in the race
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For nine days, Prosperi wandered the desert, catching and eating bats to stave off hunger and drinking the moisture from wet wipes and his own waste
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Sorry, everybody! Still gotta report those facts. Prosperi even tried to off himself after deciding that survival was hopeless
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but the dry desert heat caused the wounds on his wrist to quickly clot
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Harsh. But it wound up being the extra kick in the pants he needed to keep going
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and he eventually traveled 180 miles to a nearby village, 35 pounds lighter and on the brink of liver failure, but alive
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In the mid-1800s, the Donner Party gave new meaning to the phrase having friends for dinner
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20 wagons totaling 81 travelers kicked off their journey on May 12, 1846 from Independence, Missouri, on their way to California territory
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They were already starting things off a month behind schedule, as April is the prime time to leave for the West Coast to beat the snow
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As if that wasn't bad enough, they put their fate into the hands of conman Lansford Hastings
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who said he knew a shortcut through the Salt Lake Desert. Turns out, both the shortcut and Hastings were a bust
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and the perilous shortcut actually added a month to their journey. As a result, the party reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains just in time for the first snowstorm
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which anchored them in place near Truckee Lake. Things in the camp were bad enough that 15 of the fittest members of the party left to get help
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with several of them swiftly succumbing to nature's wrath. To gain the strength to keep going, the remaining survivors resorted to eating their comrades to survive
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As difficult and grisly as that must have been, the decision worked enough that seven members of the group were able to find help
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Two months later, the remaining survivors would be saved, with 36 ultimately perishing in the infamous journey
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Every dog lover's nightmare happened to Marco Lavoie during a two-month canoeing excursion
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in 2013 After setting up camp in northwestern Quebec a bear ransacked his sight ate all his food and probably made long calls on his cell phone Before the bear could make a meal of Lavoie his trusty German shepherd managed to scare
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the behemoth off. Good dog. But Lavoie's issues were just beginning. With all his food gone, thanks to an extremely rude bear, and the nights growing ever colder
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Lavoie had to make the impossible decision to eat his dog to survive
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Malnourished, suffering from hypothermia and days of starvation, Lavoie was eventually found three months after he had set out on the trip
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October 13, 1972, should have been a fun-filled day for the old Christians Club rugby union
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players on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. The group of kids in their teens and early 20s were
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on their way to play a tournament in Chile when the captain accidentally piloted them
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right into a mountain. The crash killed 16 passengers on impact. The 29 survivors were
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left stranded in the freezing Andes with only the wrecked plane for shelter. After 18 days in the
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cold, an avalanche covered the plane and took eight more passengers with it. Eventually, a radio was
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found. But the excitement soon turned to despair when they learned that the search for the team's
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airplane had been called off. With nothing left to lose, two team members, Nando Parado and Roberto
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Canessa, headed off into the wilderness to find help. Malnourished and weak, the pair traversed a
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15,000-foot peak and found a river. After following it for days, they finally came upon other human
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beings. They introduced themselves as survivors of the plane crash from two months prior and were
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taken to the Chilean authorities. One helicopter ride later, Parado and Canessa were able to
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pinpoint where the 14 remaining team members were, and a rescue was swiftly carried out
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When Mary Vincent was only 15 years old, she ran away from her Las Vegas home to live with
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her grandmother in California. This was in 1978, when hitchhiking was at its most common
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and most dangerous. Mary found that out the hard way when she accepted a ride from Lawrence
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Singleton. Vincent was brutally assaulted by Singleton, who removed her forearms with a
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hatchet and dumped her into a culvert. But the strong-willed teenager walked more than three
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miles to a road where she found help. As she later described it, she was able to survive by keeping
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her arms upright, both to slow the bleeding and prevent anything from falling out. Have we heard
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back about that Nobel Prize yet? Mary's case made national headlines, and when her assailant
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only received a 14-year sentence, which many felt was inexcusably light, it served as a wake-up call
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for harsher sentencing for similar crimes in the future